Router Plane, aka Old Woman's Tooth

In the handtools series, here is the router plane, a kind of ancestor of the power router, without electricity. This tool allows to dig into the wood at a calibrated depth, for cutting a groove or a rebate, parallel to an edge for instance. It can be used also for cutting inlay pockets, in marquetry.

My router plane is built upon the standard router plane blade, sold by Veritas.

The sole is made of macassar ebony (bi-color).

The handles are made of cherry.

The largest wheel serves for the cutting depth adjustment.

The blade rod is hold in place thanks to the rear knob, which allows to tighten the blade against the V shaped groove that can be seen on the picture below (I borrowed this system to Derek Cohen) :

The ring with the set screw is a depth stop, that allows to keep the desired cutting depth.

Detail of the rear and the blade locking system.

Detail of the mechanism for setting up or down the blade, and of the depth stop.

The handles are made of cherry wood. The handles are oiled and the sole is polished and finished with carnauba wax.

All the brass screws, knobs and wheels are custom made by myself.

Finally, here is a video showing this tool at work. You can see that the tool works pretty well, even in a very hard wood as that macassar ebony. However, you need to work very carefully...